Campfire Stories
by MaiaQQ
Summary: The party camped a lot on their quest- they had to talk about something besides monsters around the campfire! Back stories about the characters in their childhood, Kara/Caesar in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Hi everyone, this is the first fanfic that I'm submitting here. It's going to be about the various (made up) background stories of the characters, shared around the campfire. I'll definitely be attempting to make this funny! This is just the prologue chapter, and there's more to come.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own White Knight Chronicles. If I did, this would already be in the game.

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**Prologue**

Leonard stretched as he cleaned his axe. The party had been camped right outside the entrance to the Nordia tunnels for about an hour, now, and he was bored. The others didn't look like they were having the time of their lives, either. Eldore was the only one getting anything out of this little break: he was snoring like he had a troll in his throat.

It wasn't that Leonard didn't appreciate the time to rest and regenerate, but he had too much on his mind. Princess Cisna had been kidnapped. He didn't know why that bothered him so much- after all, he barely knew her. But she was the _princess!_ And she had liked him.

"I'm officially bored. Why don't we do something?" Yulie asked. She yawned. Leonard's gaze drifted towards the tunnels, and he wished he could go in.

"So am I." The voice of the new girl, Terra, was loud and clear. Leonard didn't even know how she had ended up with the job at the wine shop. She had just blown into town and decided to look for work.

"Let's tell campfire stories!" Yulie suddenly suggested. She was being way too cheerful for Leonard's mopey mood!

"Hey, don't you think that we should just keep going or something?" Leonard asked.

"Oh, stop it! We need to take a break. I thought that my legs were going to fall off back there."

"Sure..."

"Okay, I'll go first." Yulie declared. "We'll all take a turn."

"Sounds good to me!" Terra replied.

Leonard rolled his eyes. There weren't enough camping trips in the world to cover all of Yulie's 'stories', if that was what you could call them. She was a good kid, but she knew how to attract trouble... and vespids!

"So, this one time in Parma..." Yulie began.

Leonard looked off into the distance, hoping that she wouldn't tell embarrassing stories about him. Growing up with that girl was like giving a psychopath a weapon: it provided a means to destroy you. And Yulie certainly would end up telling people a lot... Maybe too much.

"And then Leonard-"

"Can you tell a different story, Yulie?" Leonard interrupted.

"Nope!" she continued speaking, while Terra laughed.

This was going to be one long night.


	2. Chapter 2

So, this is the first story in this... story. I hope that you enjoy it! For clarification, Terra is the avatar.

Oh, and **disclaimer:** I do not own White Knight Chronicles, and I don't own the characters used in this story.

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Yulie thought for a few moments, poking at a stone with her toe.  
"I know which story I'll tell." She said energetically. "Hey, Leonard, remember that time we found that vespid nest?"  
"Yeah, go on." Leonard replied. After having some warm food, he had lightened up a bit. He still wished that he could go and save Cisna right that moment though. "You tell the story better than I do."  
"Oh, so you won't be mad at me?"  
Leonard swirled around the water in his mug. "No. Only if you tell... that story." He shuddered.  
Yulie nodded. "I won't tell that one, then. So, about eight or nine years ago..."

Yulie never really got to go to Balandor- her parent's were firmly against her traveling outside of Parma's gates. "It's too dangerous!" they said, "There are monsters!" they said, "You could run into that traveling magic cleaning salesman again!" they said. Okay, well, maybe they didn't actually say all of those things, but Yulie never really listened anyway.  
Leonard, on the other hand, got to travel to Parma fairly often as a result of Rapacci's work. He and Yulie would often play Knight and Bandit when he was in town. They also had tickle fights, but that's another story entirely... In fact, it was one best left untold.  
"Leonard, stay close to the town, okay?" Rapacci said one day.  
Leonard sighed, totally dejected. "Okay. But can I at least go to the forest?" Yulie jumped up and down beside him excitedly.  
Seeing the look on Yulie's face, he acquiesced. "Fine. You make sure you remember to use your panic word if you get into trouble, though." Leonard nodded, and the two kids ran off to the Balastor Plain.  
"What are we going to do first?" Yulie asked when they were a considerable distance from the little town.  
Leonard waved around his practice sword. "Let's go that way!" he declared, pointing towards the deepest part of the small forest. "We can make forts and throw rocks at each other!"  
"Sounds good to me!" Yulie agreed cheerfully.

"Were you two stupid when you were kids or something?" Terra asked in disbelief. The newer addition to the party was more than a little shocked. "I mean, who thinks it's fun to throw rocks at each other?!"  
"Hey! We had to make do with what we had! It's never snowed a lot in Parma." Yulie defended.  
"Besides," Leonard added, "It's not like we ever actually hit each other."  
Terra rolled her eyes, a picture of li'l Leonard and Yulie throwing rocks and poking each other in the eyes with sharp sticks came to mind. "Continue." she said.

After a few hours of semi-violent rock throwing, they were both out of breath. "We'd better get back soon, or Rapacci is going to be really mad. He hates having to fight trolls, and I think that I've taken enough health damage today."  
"What?" Yulie replied. "Health damage? Is this meta-game thinking? Stop it! It's not funny!"  
Leonard stuck his tongue out at Yulie. They started to run back towards Parma.  
"Hey, can we sit down for a while?" Yulie asked. She was panting, and was not used to all of the vigorous exercise.  
"Sure."  
The trees were thinning out, and Yulie could see the village from the small hill she was on. It wouldn't take long to get back, but the sun was sinking and night was when the trolls and other monsters came out. Monsters, as a rule, were dangerous. Even if they wore funny hats and danced, one was not to approach them without a pointy implement. Or a sharp or blunt one: poking most just made them angry.  
Leonard was attempting to climb a tree. Being average height for a ten year old, he was having difficulty reaching the branches, all of which were high above his head.  
"You think we could climb this if you stood on my shoulders and then pulled me up?" he asked hopefully.  
"No."  
"Why not?" Leonard asked. "Are you chicken, Yulie?"  
"No! I just think we should probably head back is all."  
"Yeah..." Leonard stared at the tree for a few moments before kicking it firmly. "Stupid tree!" he said.  
Yulie started to walk towards the village, assuming that Leonard was coming with her. She and Leonard weren't supposed to be out too late, and Rapacci could be really, really, scary when he wanted to be. His stern features made him look like a grouch at the best of times, but when he was angry, you would want to throw your hands in the air and run around in circles. This could be embarrassing, which was why one avoided messing with him.  
Yulie turned to Leonard, who was beside her. "Do you hear that buzzing sound?"  
Both kids turned around. Yulie gulped loudly, while Leonard's mouth fell open before he started fumbling with his sword. A huge swarm of vespids was swooping through the air, making the angriest sound either of them had ever heard. They stopped for a second as the two stared.  
"Leonard?"  
"Yulie?"  
"I hope you remember your panic word."  
"Me too."  
Leonard and Yulie screamed and turned on their heels, running full tilt towards Parma. The buzzing started, and was louder than ever! One of the giant wasps stung Yulie in the behind, only forcing her to run faster.  
"LEONARD! What's the safety word?!"  
"I don't know!"  
"Didn't Rapacci-?!"  
"Yeah! He's gonna kill me!"  
"Leonard!"  
"Umm..." Leonard said between breaths. "CANTALOUPE!"

"Wait. Waitwaitwait." Terra interrupted. She certainly was having trouble just listening. "You're telling me that the panic word was _cantaloupe_? You're kidding!"  
"Yeah, Yulie! That's not what the panic word was!" Leonard chided. If she was going to tell the story, she had better tell it right. So far, she had messed up.  
"Stop talking! No talky more story!" Yulie shouted. She wanted to dodge the issue all together. The real word was _panic, _but she thought that _cantaloupe_ made the story much more fun.  
Eldore rolled over and made a ghastly sound, somewhere between choking and a hiccup. "You crazy kids..." he mumbled in his sleep between choke-ups. The three that were still awake exchanged glances before bursting into laughter.  
"No, really! More story!" Yulie snapped.

A large warg walked out of the village gates slowly. He unsheathed two swords and took two steps forward. He raised the weapons and stared at the swarm.  
"This town's not big enough for the..." Rapacci started to count.  
Yulie and Leonard ran behind the large man, backs against the fence.  
"Eleven... No! Who moved!? Ah, I don't care." Rapacci started hacking through the vespids, one by one. "That'll teach you to make 'em use the panic word!" he laughed. Yulie raised an eyebrow- was Rapacci some kind of crazy man?  
After what seemed like ten minutes, there were several dead vespids on the ground, one very angry warg, two kids, and a bunch of cows in front of the gates.  
"We need a new panic word."

"So that's it?" Terra asked. "That's all? 'We need a new panic word.' That's a really dumb way to end a story!"  
"Hey!" Yulie shouted. "Wasn't that the best story, Leonard?"  
"Um... I seem to recall it ending with a large slice of peach pie and dad letting me taste the wine that we were hauling." he replied, a smile spreading across his face. "Good times, good times..."  
"My stories are way better than that." Terra chimed happily. "I'll tell you one later!"  
"This I'm looking forward to." Leonard nodded.  
"Say... What was the new panic word?"  
"I'd rather not say."  
"Come on! Out with it, boy!" Eldore had gotten up, and was rubbing his eyes. "You can't leave us hanging!"  
"Butterflies."  
"You're lying, I hope." the grumpy old guy scrunched his eyebrows and rubbed his beard.  
"Yeah, it was really _pulchritudinous_."  
Eldore scratched his head a few times before going back to sleep, ever grumbling about kids today and their fancy words.


End file.
